Adding holiday to end of mat leave - part time

[BasaFillet]

Just trying to work this out but google is no help! When I went on mat leave I was part time (two days per week), which means I have 12 days holiday in the year (pro-rated from 25 days). If my 12 days are added onto the end of mat leave, do I literally get 12 days additional paid holiday leave, and then back to work? Or can the days be spaced out to my usual two days a week so it works out to be an extra 6 weeks off?

Hi, yes you can take two days per week, which totals to you having an extra week off, I did this last year, however it was a real hassle to get it sorted. I ended up speaking to HR myself as my office said I couldn’t take annual leave whilst on maternity, which is true. To get around it you have to be put as authorised absence without pay and then annual leave added thereafter

Yes. (Although I’m not quite sure of your calculation as, if full time workers get 25 days, if you are only doing 2 days, you would get 0.4 of the 25 day allowance which is 10 days rather than 12 … but that would still be five weeks). Also bear in mind that you will only be entitled to the full year’s annual leave if you have been off for a full year.
Where I worked, people would often take 11 months of maternity leave and then use their annual leave for the last month so that they got paid again for that last month. Or they might come back and use a day or two of annual leave each week so that, for the first few months back, they did 3 or 4 days at work. Or they might do shared parental leave with their partner taking, for example, 8 months themselves and their partner doing the other 4 but actually they would take the best part of 9 months as they would tag their annual leave onto their maternity.

Thanks so much to both of you! I may have fudged those numbers slightly as I don’t have my contract to hand… I think I’ve earned additional days holiday and it’s been pro rated down from that :)

so just to clarify, if I take 12 months of mat leave, I can then add on 6 weeks of leave using my two days per week of holiday leave? But potentially I’d have to finish mat leave, and add the days off as authorised absence with no pay, but then they can add the holiday pay back in for those weeks?

why’s it so confusing 😵‍💫😂 just what I need when I already have baby brain lol

Pretty sure you can just add it on, to extend your time off. My company would allow that or pay us out for the accrued holiday, but wouldn’t allow us to use the accrued holiday to work (eg) 50% of our usual days for a number of weeks/ months.

It can be really hard to understand all of this as a first time mum and to know what the options are. Do you have an HR dept where you work? It might be worth having a conversation with them and seeing what the options are - and how the numbers work (in terms of pay). I think I’m right that, once you switch from maternity leave to normal leave you lose some of the protections that you have when you’re on maternity leave.

This is quite confusing why would you have authorised absence with no pay? Do you mean the three months unpaid maternity leave?

You get 12 months maternity leave at the end of the 12 months you apply for 6 weeks (12 days) annual leave which you will be paid for.